Fish Wednesday: Tuscan Style Tuna Edition

My pal S – she lives in Tuscany – is a fine cook. One year, I was at her place in Maremma for a birthday feast and wow, did we eat some seafood. She lives not far from Porto Ercole so we all squeezed into someone’s car and headed down to have Italian style cocoa in the January weather. Before we went home, we stopped at the fish market. Later that evening we ate and ate and ate some more.

It’s from S. that I learned you can rarely go wrong in the kitchen if you use plenty of high quality olive oil. Here in Seattle we buy olive oil in large containers at PFI – Pacific Food Importers. The folks at the counter will tell you the difference between the varieties. In the past, they’ve recommended what the tonier Seattle restaurants are using – and it’s not always the most expensive. When left to our own devices, we look for the greenest oil we can find.

This week’s Fish Wednesday Thursday recipe came from Flavors of Tuscany: Recipes from the Heart of Italy. I won’t repeat the recipe but in short, it’s braised tuna in a roasted red pepper sauce. It’s time consuming in that you have to roast and peel the peppers and then make the sauce, but it’s not difficult. We picked up some very high quality tuna from our favorite source, Seattle Fish Company, at the West Seattle Junction. The sauce was nice and the fish, if I may gloat a little, was a perfect and tender medium rare, but I wanted a little something more, a little bite. I’ve scribbled “green olives? capers?” in the margins of the book for next time.

When I’m feeling especially pleased with my Fish Wednesday accomplishments, I like to present the tab to Mr. NEV. Tonight, after I said “That will be 32.50, please,” he replied, “No way I’m paying Fish Wednesday prices on Fish Thursday!”

Eat your fish. It makes you smart.